Spaceflight Insider

OSHKOSH, Wis. — When one thinks of air shows, images of sleek fighter planes, aerial acrobats spinning plumes of smoke, and old warbirds majestically flying past spectators spring to mind. However, with ever-increasing regularity, spacecraft and astronauts are becoming key participants in these shows. The recent EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2017 air show was no exception.

In the last year, Blue Origin pushed its New Shepard suborbital vehicle in more complex tests, unveiled a reusable orbital rocket, and broke ground on a new factory in Florida. Now the company is looking one step further, revealing a design for a lunar lander at the 33rd Space Symposium.

In a March 29, 2017, email, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos revealed additional progress on the company’s New Shepard suborbital space tourism capsule. Instead of focusing on spaceflight technologies, the latest images coming out of the company show tantalizing photos of the ship’s interior.

On Wednesday, March 8, 2017, Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos announced on Twitter that OneWeb, an organization committed to making the Internet available and affordable to everyone by 2027, has reached an initial agreement for five launches on Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket.

French-based satellite provider Eutelsat Communications announced on March 7, 2017, at the Satellite 2017 Convention in Washington, D.C., that it had signed a contract with Blue Origin for a launch on the New Glenn rocket, which is expected to begin flights in 2020.

In a recent e-mail, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos shared pictures of the company’s 750,000-square-foot (69,677-square-meter) facility, which is being built at Exploration Park on Kennedy Space Center property.

Poor weather conditions may have delayed the test for 24 hours, but that didn't stop Blue Origin from putting on a heck of a show while testing the New Shepard's launch abort system. At 11:36 a.m. EDT (15:36 GMT) on Oct. 5, after a nearly 40-minute hold, the rocket and capsule zipped off the pad for a final flight.

In a recent e-mail, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos unveiled more details about the company’s family of future orbital launch vehicles, named New Glenn. The new vehicles include two-stage and three-stage versions with a first stage producing 3.85 million pounds (17.1 million newtons) of thrust. The orbital vehicles are named for the first American astronaut to reach orbit – John Glenn.

As the New Shepard vehicle accelerates through max Q, a flight computer detects an anomaly and triggers an in-flight abort. The crew module shoots away from the stricken booster to safely return its occupants to Earth. Though notional in description, this is what Blue Origin plans to verify in an early October 2016 test flight of its reusable launch system.

Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft conducted its third flight on April 2, 2016. The integrated stack reached an apogee of 339,178 feet (103 kilometers). Perhaps most notably, it marked the third time that particular booster was used to carry out a test flight – proving the reusability of the design.

Third time was the charm, that has to be what Jeff Bezos must be thinking today. His company's New Shepard rocket carried out its third successful launch and landing on Saturday, April 2. With this latest flight, the company is one step closer toward having tourists roar to sub-orbit within the foreseeable time frame.

The founder of Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, is relatively new to the Twitter universe, but that has not stopped him from gaining a huge following after his tweets regarding GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump. It marked the second time the billionaire sparred with someone in his pay-grade.

Blue Origin successfully flew their New Shepard suborbital spacecraft and booster to space in an unpiloted test reaching a planned altitude of 329,839 feet (100.5 kilometers) before landing back at the launch site.